Commerce Secretary Patricia Moulton was far too busy to comment on the sudden, unexplained departure of Gene Fullam as head of Vermont’s EB-5 office, but she did manage to make time for a live interview on Thursday’s “Vermont Edition.” Subject: EB-5.
Inexplicably, host Jane Lindholm didn’t ask about Fullam’s departure. A deal, perhaps?
UPDATE 7/23: Got this Tweet from Lindholm:
@theVPO1 There was no deal. Our own reporter was busy breaking the news & getting Moulton’s comments. https://t.co/luXLYjSziS
— Jane Lindholm (@JaneLindholm) July 23, 2016
Immediately preceding Moulton was State Auditor Doug Hoffer, who’s been critical of the grant programs administered by her agency. Among other things, he pointed out that it’s impossible to prove whether the state grants actually create economic activity that wouldn’t exist in their absence.
And then Moulton came on and admitted that those programs operate on the honor system. Regarding the Vermont Economic Growth Initiative, she said:
… we believe the CEOs, when they sign an application, that the material is true and correct.
Aww. Isn’t that sweet. “We believe the CEOs.”
Because a CEO would never lie to us.
Moulton is heading off to serve as temporary president of Vermont Technical College. I can only hope she brings the same philosophy to her new post.
Students applying for financial aid? No need to do income verification; we believe them!
Presumably she’ll abolish time sheets for hourly employees, because we can take their word for it. Right?
And why stop there? Let’s export this principle to other areas of government. For instance, we could save a boatload of money on bureaucracy if we stopped checking on the eligibility of welfare recipients. Because we can simply believe them!
Or perhaps not. Perhaps we can only place our trust in corporate executives. In which case we could stop auditing road-construction contracts, because surely those contractors can be trusted to fulfill their obligations.
And hey, the Corrections Department can stop bothering to oversee that for-profit prison that’s housing some of our inmates. Because, in the words of Pat Moulton,
“We believe the CEOs.”
Good God in heaven.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
Jesus. Operating on blind faith? This is just stupid. Why don’t our elected officials piss and moan about this kind of stuff? Hoffer is, which is why this guy should be running for governor but he digs what he does and that’s cool. Putting up with all the golden dome cliques and that Mazza asshole and his kind would probably not excite Hoffer.
And when I read that Jane Lindholm of VPR’s Vermont Edition is Vermont’s own Terry Gross, I vowed to stop listening to VPR(7Days – Best of VT.) I have held to that promise almost 99%. I scan the radio when I am in the car and not listening to a CD so those stations pop up for 15 seconds or so. And there are a lot of them out there! Reading this stuff makes me want to run out to the lake and drown myself. Seriously? Don’t they realize we are on to their shenanigans? And you wrote a wonderfully scathing commentary on the positive aspects of VPR a while back! I should have printed it out for posterity, to show people why I have opted out of liberal mainstream thinking.
But Vermont has to be friendlier to business! Haven’t you read how the Chamber of Commerce, the Wall Street Journal and all the Kochtopus organs bash us for being hostile to business? The EB-5 program was our attempt to mollify them. Sort of, maybe if we behave better, they’ll stop abusing us.
That’s just bea-u-tiful. If you’ve ever helped someone in a major, financial crisis get basic help in Vermont – or have been that person yourself – you’ll know you have to ‘splain yourself. Hungry? Well why? Homeless? Why? How’d ya spend your SS-Di check? You smoke cigarettes…really. And what makes you think CAB-LE is really necessary? Hmmm. And BTW, you got your birth certificates for you and everybody in your family, you shifty homeless person, you. You might be a Syrian. We never can tell….
Good God I guess. Why wasn’t this stupid woman fired when the SEC made the investigation of EB-5 public. I can see covering up for her till then but where was Shumlin? Probably in that dork Mazza’s garage. Now Moulton is running a state college.
To be a success in the Shumlin administration all you have to do is fail.
Moulton got her start in the Jim Douglas administration, serving for all eight years of his tenure. He knows how to pick ’em too.
I hate to admit it, but you are right.
Unbelievable . . . . actually totally believable and unfortunately all to true !